The Home of the Flying Stone
Category:UtGS Manses The Home of the Flying Stone On her travel south-west, towards where she would eventually stop and decide to look around, Corei's flight took her over forest, hill and dale, plentiful, verdant grasslands, uncomfortably close to blasted, scorched lands, and skirted south of where one generally expects to see Lookshy's vessels in the air. Eventually, she flew over the water, in the scrub-lands on the borders of the verdant East and the blasted South; to the north-west was home; a home she could not return to, even though she longed to do so. However, one cannot stare in one direction all the time, and so she looked at the cliffs she was flying north of, when something caught her eye – an odd glint of strong red. Not a vibrancy of the color typically seen in sandstone or granite cliffs, so she circled around for another look. Eventually, she found what she would come to call the Home of the Flying Stone. On an impressively tall, jutting cliff, she found a most pecular concentration of unique geographical and geomantic features; from the sea, it could not be seen, because the cliffside below jutted up, and there was a cliff above it, that smoothly took up the jutting. Likewise, it could not be seen from the side of the cliff above – all anyone who looked over the top would see would be the vertigo-inducing fall into the ocean, and no sane person would look twice, let alone rappel down the inwards-sloping cliff! No, the Home of the Flying Stone can only be readily seen from the air, from the right angles of flight, and only from over the sea. At the right time of day, with Sol at the right angle, sunlight pours into the Manse, revealing the shining she saw; the glinting of the Hearthstone. The blistering sirocco sweeping perpetually north meets the tradewinds over the sea, strongly imparting the aspect of Air. The Home itself is carved of geomantic patterns in the heavy, sturdy, thick granite, leading to an altar. And so, Corei landed inside, on a relatively flat platform, set the landing claws on Freefall firmly, and climbed off. Carefully she picked her way into the shallow cave, lit by the midmorning sun, to the altar, which was built sturdily but whimsically carved and shaped as the meeting of many vortexes of wind, where she found a red, flat, thick triangular crystal floating above the meeting of the vortexes, twirling rapidly. Smiling, she took the stone, setting it in the first Hearthstone slot of Fiend-Buster – at once, the wind in the cave muted down a bit, and she found that whenever she swung the sword, little eddies of air pushed it, aiding it's arc to where she wished it to go – as well, when she wished to leap from the way of something, little eddies of air would assist her movement, pushing her just a bit faster, but no less surely, than she could push herself. Was it luck, or fate, that brought her to this minor, but ever useful Manse, long-forgotten and with no clue left of it's original forger? Who can say? The Home of the Flying Stone is a level-1 Manse capping a level 1 Demense. It is a cave, and a single one; it's not very comfortable, but with tents, or even without them, it would be a superior place to pitch camp than the middle of the wilderness; it provides shelter from above and below, and, positing the possession of exceedingly long fishing lines, one could theoretically acquire food from the interior of the manse. It has a platform inside that was apparently meant as a landing platform for small flying craft. Thus, it has a level 1 Habitability flaw. Being a level 1 Manse, it starts with 2 creation points; thus having three points to spend. All of the points are spent on the Fortress power, to represent the manse's remote nature, difficult access, and general concealment from observation. Within the Home of the Flying Stone was a hearthstone: Jewel of the Flying Heart (One Dot) This blood-red, triangular stone increases the bearer's Dodge DV by one (final value, not the calculated pool). Setting this hearthstone in an edged weapon also grants +1 bonus to all Melee attacks the bearer makes with the weapon. (Currently inset in Fiend-Buster)